I have cleaned a lot of skulls over the years, including regular ol' coyotes, trophy bears, massive deer, and tiny little mice. But a gator? Well, that's a new one for me, so when a hunter from Texas contacted me about cleaning some gator skulls for him, I jumped at the opportunity. You may remember my post about how this hunter shipped the skulls to me back at the beginning of this month, which can be found here.
Now the time has come to start cleaning them up, so I pulled out the smallest of the three alligator heads, which is still quite large. I have to say that as I was carving off a few remaining large chunks of flesh, I was a little nervous - I kept looking at those closed eyes, expecting them to slide open any moment as the jaws starting snapping, like some horror movie! I know it sounds crazy, but it's my first time ever handling a gator, dead or alive.
The lower jaw is just about done, and the upper section of the head will be getting cleaned next. I'll be posting up the pictures as soon as the first gator is completely done, so keep an eye on this blog for more info!
Oddly enough, as I was getting ready to write this post I got an email from Outdoor Life in which one of their main article was about a trapper in Florida who just caught a record 14ft, 900lb alligator - in a residential lake! Even more amazing was that in the process, he caught several other alligators, including two 11ft gators. Sheesh - remind me not to swim in Florida lakes. You can find the entire story here.
I went out last night to sight in a new scope and rifle for Independence Training's new Precision Rifle course, and when I was done I was sitting on my shooting mat putting some info in my dope book when my son says "Hey, a jackrabbit!" I look up to see this big ol' jackrabbit about 50 yards away rolling around in the dirt, so I slowly open a box of ammo, load a round into the chamber of my rifle, and roll into the prone position. The rabbit never saw me until it was too late and a 168gr Hornady TAP round slammed into his boiler room - first blood for my new rifle. What you see in the picture below is the exit wound, but what else is in the picture is the weirdest thing I have ever had happen when shooting a jackrabbit - the TAP round blew the rabbit's heart out, whole and complete and without a scratch, and it landed right where you see it in the picture. Craziest thing I have ever seen.
Every good shooter needs a good spotter, and I have one of the best.
For those of you interested in my rifle setup, it is a Remington 700 SPS AAC-SD in .308 WIN with Nightforce 1-piece 20 MOA rail and medium Nightforce rings, all of which came from our friends over at STG Firearms. The scope is the Primary Arms 4-14x44mm FFP mil-dot, courtesy of Marshall at Primary Arms. This is a very excellent setup, and as you can see by the groups below, it gets the job done. I'll be testing additional loads through it as we continue to gear up for the course, including heading to the range tomorrow for some 500 yard work with the 175gr Sierra Matchkings alongside our sniper instructor, Josh.
3 shot group wth Hornady 168gr TAP FPD
3 shot group with Black Hills 175gr BTHP
5 shot group with Federal Premium Gold Medal Match 168gr Sierra Matchkings -
this was the worst round I have fired through this rifle, but then again it does not get
good field reports from other sources, so I'll be trying the 175gr version instead.
Overall, I really like this rifle and optic combo, and I look forward to putting a lot of quality shots downrange with it.
August 2nd, 2012 - hunting in the state of Arizona using firearms fitted with sound suppressors is now legal! There are also no longer magazine restrictions on centerfire rifles or shotguns. Woo-hoo!
To celebrate this, I went out yesterday with some fellow shooting and hunting enthusiasts to have a good time and we took along some suppressors and absolutely ZERO 'low-capacity' magazines.
I got the first kill of the day with my suppressed Remington 870 using 3" #4 buckshot on this little cottontail:
We didn't have any luck on our first few predator hunting stands, and then we got extremely sidetracked with lots of lots of prairie dogs. I didn't think shooting prairie dogs could be any more fun than it already is, but add in sound suppressors and normal capacity magazines and it's a serious recipe for awesome! We even had a chance to chase a badger around, but unfortunately he ran into his badger hole before we had the chance to turn him into a rug.
Here's just a few of our hunting tools for the day - there were several other suppressed AR-15s in use, as well:
Once we had our fill of prairie dogs (figuratively, not literally) we grabbed some lunch and then got serious about predator hunting again. On the first stand after lunch, myself and 2 other hunters were set up at the edge of a small clearing. I decided to resort back to tried-and-true handcalling and left the FoxPro turned off for this stand. Not 2 minutes into my raspy cottontail distress using a Sceery AP-6, a young coyote came busting out of the treeline and headed right for me like she was on a string. I raised my shotgun (easier said than done with that big ol' suppressor on it!) and with a near silent shot she was in the dirt. That proved to be all for that stand, so we packed up and headed to the next one. Here's a few pictures of what happened - dotted red lines is where she came in from, and the red circle is where I dropped her with a load of 3" #4 buckshot:
We started calling my shotgun "Flamethrower" due the shape of the suppressor, though we also considered calling it "Bilstein" since it also looks like some kind of vehicle part!
On the next stand I called in another coyote with the same Sceery AP-6, but the hunter who saw him only had a 2 second window to shoot, and then the coyote was gone. After that stand, the weather started blessing us with ample amounts of rain and wind, so we headed off to another location:
After one more stand in the wind and looming rain, we decided to call it an early day and headed home to a warm meal and a hot shower. It was a great day, though, with firsts for everyone involved since suppressed hunting just became legal!
I want to give a big thanks to Tim McBride from East Valley Class III for providing me with the "Flamethrower," which is actually the Mark I shotgun suppressor hand made by Tim himself. Mark II and Mark III, which are lighter and more efficient, are currently in the works, and I look forward to putting them to work in the field. And what's the official name for Tim's shotgun suppressor? The QCK - Quiet Coyote Killer. Right on, Tim!
Below is a short video of me putting some rounds through a few of the suppressed hunting tools we used to demo their very quiet nature. Notice the lack of hearing protection - with all of the shooting we did all day, not one of us had so much as an ear buzz. To me, that is one of the biggest advantages of using a suppressor while hunting, especially considering the muzzle blast from a shotgun.
I have heard several hunting stories and have even seen a few pictures of red
foxes from the Four Corners area of Arizona. I have always wanted to get up
there and go hunting, but I don't really have a reason to head to that part of
the state (other than the potential for an AZ red fox) unless I am driving to Colorado. A Red Fox is the only predator in AZ
that I have never dropped in the dirt (besides the Long-Tailed Weasel, of
course). Then this last weekend I was heading back from Colorado through the
Four Corners area when I found this:
It had been dead for awhile, but at least I got to see my first Arizona Red
Fox!
I do a lot of skull cleaning every year with my dermestid beetle colonies and get skulls from all over the country. The number one question I get when someone wants to send me a skull is "How do I ship it?" This process usually involves fleshing the skull (removing the excess flesh, including eyes, tongue, and brains), freezing the skull in a ziploc bag, wrapping it in plastic, putting it in a cardboard box lined with styrofoam, inserting some cold packs, and then shipping it as fast as possible, usually overnight. Even though it sounds like a lot, it isn't a difficult process, and I have had some clients come up with some really ingenious and unique ways to ship skulls. But none of them beats the shipment that I got a few weeks ago:
I had a client contact me from a southern state asking about cleaning alligator skulls, and I was very interested to get to work on them. But how could we get them to Arizona with as little mess as possible? Well, this alligator hunter took it a step further than the ol' foam lined cardboard box - he went with an entire cooler, jam packed with 3 alligator heads! I absolutely love this guy's way of thinking, especially since the gator heads arrived still frozen with no rot and no stink - except for a little "swamp reek"!
Keep your eyes on my blog as these gator heads are just about ready to be put in the beetles, and I'll be posting pictures of them for sure!
Glen lives in Arizona with his awesome family. He spends every minute he can in the outdoors. When he isn't hunting, he operates Independence Training, which offers firearms courses, emergency medical classes, self-defense training, and youth education courses.
And check out my book, Ready For Anything - A guide to predator hunting. You'll learn everything you need to know about getting started in and being successful at predator hunting!
In our emasculate age, it is considered uncouth to confess to anything resembling a killer instinct. Yet such a thing does exist, and it is worth study. It is fashionable to protest that one does not hunt in order to kill, as with Ortega y Gasset, yet if one does not kill, hunting is emotionally unsatisfying. This is why some people hunt and others do not. I think it is ingenuous to protest that the killer instinct is evil. Man is a carnivorous predator - you have but to look to his teeth - and though very few men now need to hunt for their food, a good many men do need to hunt for emotional fulfillment. This is not evil. It is as natural as the enjoyment of good food, great art, and fine music. To deny this is simply to look foolish. I know many shooters who are not hunters, and I do not think less of them for this. I know a surprising number of hunters who are not shooters, and while I think this is peculiar, I do not think it is wicked. I must admit that today in my declining years my bloodlust has slackened, but this has no moral significance for me. Even today I hunt whenever I can, and I often play catch-and-release by snapping in on an empty chamber. The fact remains, however, that there is such a thing as a killer instinct, and it is neither to be extolled nor condemned. In my own family there are those who are true killers and those who are not, and I love them equally. Judging from my own experience (which is a thing one never ought to do) I feel that those without the killer instinct lead somewhat diminished lives, as do people who are tone deaf or color blind, but I think we should drop psychological pretense in this matter, and face facts as they are. I happen to relish chili very much, but I do not demand that you do. It is not a moral issue. - Col. Jeff Cooper
We do not 'harvest' or 'take' or 'reduce to possession' in our sport. We kill. Dress it up anyway you want, but we pursue white-tailed deer with the intent of ending their lives. - Walt Hampton
Personal field testing trumps everything despite what Field and Stream says, your degree of perceived manhood, and what your buddies think. - Greg Williams
